Saturday, July 13, 2013

Say no to police state

QUESTION TIME
Who decides policy in this country? Is it the police? Are we as a
nation supposed to be subservient to the police and ask their permission
first before we implement anything? Are they, a government department,
allowed to lobby actively for what they want and even against things
that Parliament has passed?

The
way the police have launched a campaign for the return of the notorious
Emergency Ordinance (EO), one would think that their crime-fighting
abilities have been crippled as a result of the repeal of that
oppressive piece of legislation. That’s far from the truth.

The
Emergency Ordinance and the infamous Internal Security Act, were
repealed in 2011 and replaced with the Security Offences (Special
Measures) Act 2012 and changes to other laws. Together with this, the
state of emergency that prevailed in this country since independence
under three different proclamations was lifted.

A cursory look at
the Emergency Ordinance of 1969 and some of its orders made in the
aftermath of the May 13, 1969 racial riots gave considerable power to
the police and government of the day to override any and all provisions
with regard to personal rights. It was terribly draconian - a police
state in other words where anyone could be arrested and detained.

If
anyone doubts that it was indeed a police state, all one has to do is
to take a look at some of the provisions when it was promulgated. Here
is a sampling, especially as it relates to police powers:

Any
police officer may arrest anyone if he is satisfied that he should be
detained to preserve public order, to suppress violence or to prevent
violent crimes.

Any person arrested can be detained in
police custody for up to 60 days. He can be detained for 24 hours with
the authority of an inspector or above, and up to 48 hours with the
authority of an assistant superintendent and above. With a report to the
inspector-general, a person can be detained for more than 30 days.

With the approval of the home minister, a person can be detained for up to two years.

Note
that no crime need be committed before detention and that the police
officer just needs to be satisfied that the person needs to be detained
for the mentioned reasons. That basically gives a huge amount of
discretionary power to the police. And where there is discretion, there
is abuse.

It is amazing to think that this law was in existence
for some 42 years, long after the conditions that caused its
implementation had passed. Its counterpart, the Internal Security Act
which also provided for detention without trial, was in existence for
more than half a century before being repealed!

It should be
noted as well that the EO was promulgated then for the express purpose
of nipping any racial violence in the bud by nabbing those who might be
positioned to cause trouble, especially given rising tensions at the
time. For a short period of time it may have been acceptable but it
should never have been prolonged for over four decades. That in itself
was serious abuse.

Never intended for crime prevention

It
was never intended for the prevention of normal everyday crime. In any
functioning democracy which respects and protects the legitimate rights
of the people, preventive detention has no place simply because of the
substantial room there is for abuse.

It basically makes the
police force a lazy, incompetent and even corrupt one. Lazy because, you
don’t need to gather evidence - just arrest and detain. Incompetent
because over time, investigation is not needed. Corrupt because people
will be willing to pay not to get detained.

If the EO is given
full rein and policemen and the home minister exercise all their powers
under this, we are nothing more than a police state. And it has been
shown repeatedly that such powers are often abused and remove the
safeguards for the proper functioning of society with adequate checks
and balances.

It is horrifying that newly-appointed Home Minister
Ahmad Zahid Hamidi seems to be in league with the police to bring back
this obnoxious piece of legislation whose only aim is to suffocate
legitimate dissent against the ruling party and government and
re-instill a climate of fear and apprehension to control the public.

Prime
Minister Najib Abdul Razak must be regretting his decision to make
Zahid the home minister who seems set on undoing everything Najib had
done in terms of freeing up the country and giving people back their
basic rights. Zahid is also now opposed to repealing the Sedition Act.
Reportedly, Najib had promised this to the cabinet.

Lobbying for
the EO also involved newspapers, with The Star front-paging reports
quoting anonymous police officials who strongly maintained that the
repeal of the EO had made the job of the police much more difficult.
Other such views were also given prominence with little coverage of
opposite views.

The police is the department that is least trusted in government (see chart).
Their record has been far from exemplary and death and torture in
custody have been a matter of routine with no prosecution significant to
the crime committed.

The police publicly fought and even
threatened against the implementation of the Independent Police
Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) recommended by a royal
commission headed by a former chief justice which would have the power
to investigate police misdeeds.

Then-prime minister Abdullah
Ahmad Badawi abandoned his election promise to set up the IPCMC, and one
of the major reasons was the strong, vocal objection of the police
force, which went above the heads of government leaders to appeal
directly to Umno.

On
top of that, police assertions that the repeal of the IO led to an
increase in crimes is not substantiated by its own figures which show
that crime (see chart) at first actually increased even when the EO was there and declined afterwards and even after the EO was repealed in 2012.

It
would be a dire mistake to give the police back their powers under the
EO, a law specifically introduced to curb racial riots. The police must
simply get the evidence necessary and make their case in court if they
want people put away, the way they are required to in every democratic,
developed and ethical society in the world.

Anyone who supports
the EO simply and unequivocally supports the establishment of a police
state whereby the police can detain and restrict the movements of anyone
at their complete whim and fancy. The police and the home minister may
want it. The rest of us don’t.

Every Malaysian should strongly
oppose such a move and give notice to the powers that be that he will
not support a government that takes some of his most basic rights away
from him just to keep the police and the home minister happy and
satisfied.
P GUNASEGARAM is founding editor of KiniBiz.